The Art of the Bridge

ARCHITECT MIGUEL ROSALES likes to give his absolute, undivided attention to the task at hand. Nattily dressed, perfectly composed and seated in the center of an elegant blue sofa in his Beacon Hill brownstone, the country’s most popular bridge designer pauses before responding to questions, weighing each word, to construct precise sentences that span his life story.

Rosales is the inspired mind behind the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge, which connects the North End to Charlestown. Since its completion in 2003, it has become one of Boston’s most beloved and iconic sights. The bridge’s name is a bit of a mash-up, as it needed to acknowledge both the cities it brought together: Leonard Paul Zakim was a local Jewish American religious and civil rights leader who fought poverty and racism, while the “Bunker Hill” portion salutes Charlestown’s critical role in the American Revolution. Bostonians tend to call it the Zakim bridge, and Charlestown residents, the Bunker Hill bridge.

By any name, the Zakim bridge is a beauty—a thrilling structure to behold and to drive over, with soaring white steel sail-like stay cables that honor Boston’s maritime history and symbolize its tech-powered future. It gleams at sunrise and sunset, a graceful beacon of American optimism. It’s also a triumph of engineering and urban planning, a bold 1,432 feet long and 300 feet high, planted in the middle of densely populated, culturally distinct city neighborhoods.

The Zakim bridge was Rosales’ first major project, a significant accomplishment for a young architect, and it catapulted him to the global stage. He has since designed multiple bridges across the U.S. and in Panama. Today, he is sought after for engineering projects that require a balance of technical and aesthetic aspects at a reasonable cost.

Rosales is polite and self-effacing, with a genteel, almost formal bearing. He grew up in middle-class comfort in Guatemala City, one of four sons in a doting family, a reserved child who kept to himself and preferred to stay inside drawing, thinking and cultivating his many natural gifts.

“My favorite toy was a Spirograph, a toy with gears and a pen you used to draw geometric patterns. It came with a big book of designs, some of which were difficult to do. If the pen skipped, you had to start all over again. I spent countless hours doing that. I did every single design in the book,” he says, chuckling.

A LEAP TO BOSTON

Rosales didn’t start out with a particular interest in bridges or plans to come to the U.S. But after earning an architecture degree from the University of Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala in 1985,  was encouraged by one of his former professors to continue his studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It was a huge opportunity.

“How many Guatemalans were coming to Boston in the 1980s to one of the country’s most prestigious universities?” Rosales asks rhetorically. “I can tell you, not many,” he says, with a smile that speaks volumes.

At MIT, Rosales specialized in urban and environmental design, earning a master’s degree in architecture studies in 1987. There, he discovered that he had a deep interest in the intersection of architectural design and urban planning. He worked on the Central Artery Tunnel project in the 1990s, but when other work proved evasive, he founded his own architectural design company, Rosales+, and projects rolled in.

BUILDING BEAUTY

Just as a good bridge can have a positive effect on people and the local economy, a poorly-designed one can cause an uproar. Rosales consults people in the communities where a bridge is planned, and creates 3-D projections early in the design process to ensure he is considering every angle. Aesthetics are a critical dimension: Rosales feels strongly about creating bridges that people find attractive.

“When building a bridge,” he says, “you must consider numerous factors: cost-effectiveness, compliance with all the requirements and constraints, and longevity. A beautiful and expensive design is easy, but budgets can’t support the cost. To make something beautiful and cost-effective is much harder, but if you can do that, that’s a real accomplishment.”

Rosales’s bridges connect humans and transform cities. They shorten commutes, create green spaces, and change the way residents interact with their surroundings. Notable examples include the stunning, almost undetectable single cable suspension Liberty Bridge in Greenville, South Carolina (2004), the Zakim-like cabled Puente Centenario over the Panama Canal (2004), and the elegant Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., a complex counterweight bascule—meaning moveable—bridge, which won the coveted Gustav Lindenthal medal for a single outstanding engineering achievement. All rank high on lists of local people’s favorite structures.

“Many people don’t analyze their response to beauty,” explains Rosales. “It might be the harmonious proportions or distinctive design that catches their eye, but they don’t articulate it in that way. They just intuitively know they find it beautiful.”

INSPIRING PROPOSALS

Like the Zakim, Rosales’ Liberty Bridge has a particularly ingenious design. It features a clear, 200-foot pedestrian walkway which seems to float magically over the surging Reedy River. Here, you can almost melt into the landscape, surrounded by panoramic views of the city’s spectacular gardens and glimpses of Greenville’s sparkling city lights. It’s a huge visitor draw, a source of pride for the residents, and a favorite congregation spot for all. People regularly email Rosales to tell him they just got engaged on his bridge.

“They send me photographs of the marriage proposals that happened there,” he offers modestly, his eyes gentle. “These moments bring me a lot of satisfaction. The bridge is clearly a special place for people, which is truly amazing.”

Between 2012 and 2018, Rosales designed multiple pedestrian bridges in Texas and Massachusetts, including the Phyllis J. Tilly Memorial Bridge in Fort Worth and Boston’s Frances Appleton Bridge. He also oversaw restoration of the famous Longfellow bridge, which had deteriorated due to a lack of maintenance over half a century.

Elegance at Home

At Rosales’ six-story brownstone, which he shares with his husband John Corey, a preservation expert, visitors are asked politely to remove their shoes (socks are readily provided). The elegant rooms are traditionally designed, containing few objects that don’t have a practical use. Two silver bowls rest symmetrically on a mantlepiece. Framed paintings of historical ships hang on the walls. It’s silent except for the dignified chime of a clock, precisely on the hour.

Their back garden is a gem, one of the stops on the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill tour. Golden afternoon light filters through the leaves overhead, dappling the patio. Rosales points out the large tree that towers above the house, which he says turns spectacular colors in the fall. He has recently begin cultivating his own plants, several of which are displayed in neat rows on the steps leading to the balcony. He selects one, cradling it in his hands like an infant, and explains that it’s a deer foot fern he nurtured for three years, which won the 2025 Garden Club of America’s Rosie Jones Horticultural Award, a prize given for plants that demonstrate exceptional and inspiring visual appeal.

The garden is a private oasis for Rosales, a place to reflect and bask in the beauty of nature, shaped by his own hands.

“When I was studying architecture in Guatemala, a professor said to me, ‘To be a good architect, you have to surround yourself with places and objects that are aesthetically beautiful, because then you’ll understand their qualities, their components.’  I try to follow this practice, both in my life and in my work.”

Book of Bridges

Miguel Rosales’ new hardcover book, “Bridges as Structural Art,” features 268 pages of gorgeous color photographs of 25 bridges he and his firm, Rosales+, have designed. It also includes Rosales’ personal story and information about the process of designing and engineering each structure. You can find the book on Amazon and on the Rosales+ website, www.rosalespartners.com.